Harsh Toke's Light Up and Live

San Diego’s own, here, live for the fumes. They live for each new spume. Imagine that perpetually smoking RV from Breaking Bad and substitute some stinky green, which at least won’t kill you quite so quickly, and might grant you some illumination along your carbon-based incarnation. The quartet’s way, way out there, but they roll it up in a labor of love and life, with that thick, sweet patina.

So each new guitar wave from Figgy oscillates out of Earth’s atmosphere, bounces off the moon, and reflects until inertia stills it at midpoint — except, of course, the ones missing Luna and bound all the way to Mars, Jupiter, possibly even Neptune the mystic, gaining flavor on every back-and-forth and who knows, maybe bringing back T-shirts. Gabe leans on an organ for drones alongside the waves.

Richie’s bass works like infrasound noises from earthquakes, pushing the higher frequencies beyond the stratosphere, especially on the title track. Buya’s cymbal splashes sizzle into sine wave, although he turns surprisingly tribal with some tom-tom cadences. Brian Ellis, on loan from the like-minded Astra (and the only one copping to a last name here), adds festive flute around Buya-beats, and later, saxophone for roughage.

You get lyrics at times, but I’ll to let you figure them out yourself. Then you’ll have to decide if they aren’t some enormous tiny Zen joke, like that drum solo on “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Short term, though, just appreciate the voice as added texture. Everything flows. I think a Walrus said that, once…

• Artist: Harsh Toke
• Album: Light Up and Live
• Label: Tee Pee Records
• Songs: (1) Rest in Prince (2) Weight of the Sun (3) Light Up and Live (4) Plug in to the Moon